The Songs of Every Poet Past
by littleblackdog
Summary: Heartsong/Soulmate AU. Another sequel to "Made and Remade the Necklace of Songs." Dwalin/Ori romance. For those who wanted our fine Company's Heartsongs expanded upon. A cold winter's night in Erebor, wherein Dwalin is maudlin and Ori is good company. Some violence and past character death mentioned.


_AN: __**HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.**__ Not just for Desolation of Smaug, but for the whole story of The Hobbit. Set after the Battle of Five Armies._

_There are character deaths mentioned in this story, but only very vaguely. Because this is an AU, and nothing is written in stone when it comes to a Heartsong-struck Thorin Oakenshield, and a particularly extraordinary hobbit. So please, don't be too sad_

* * *

It had only been a few short weeks— long enough for the worst of Dwalin's stitched wounds to start itching like fire and the shallower cuts to scab, while the aching in his shoulder and ribs still bit at the most inconvenient times— and he was already snarling at every bastard from the Iron Hills who so much as looked sideways at him. Most of the healers had already given up trying to keep him resting and laid out on his arse, with the exception of Oin, of course. The stubborn old coot just pretended not to hear Dwalin's cursing every time he checked in to prod and poke at his newest scars.

He'd only split his stitches twice, and he'd managed to whip up a few dozen decent warriors into some semblance of a guard force in the meantime. At least it was a start.

They'd already lost one king on his watch. He'd not lose another for the sake of ludicrous orders from a pack of wittering herbmasters.

Balin tutted at him, as was his brother's way, but there was a core of true concern beneath the usual fretting. A darker centre, much like the cold pit that sat heavy in Dwalin's chest since Thorin had gone. And it was that worry, with its purple bruises hollowing beneath Balin's eyes, that managed to rein Dwalin in enough to keep from tearing himself apart. Too much had been lost already.

Which is exactly how Dwalin found himself sitting in front of a crackling hearth, with a pot of mulled wine keeping warm on its iron hook, and some surprisingly welcome company.

"Stop your fussing, lad." Surprisingly welcome, indeed, but there was more to young Ori than Dwalin had expected, when Thorin had first cobbled together his ill-sorted Company on this impossible quest. More strength, and certainly more courage; there wasn't a dwarf among their number that Dwalin wouldn't trust at his back now, not even Nori, but Ori...

Ori was the sole reason Dwalin wasn't laid out in some cold stone tomb, shuffling off to Mahal's halls. If he hadn't tossed Dwalin that elven spear— and hadn't thrown it as true as he had, landing it as though he'd placed the handle directly into Dwalin's palm— neither of them would have been whole enough to limp off the battlefield outside the gates of Erebor. That damned tree-shagger's toothpick had been keen enough to take out a handful of Orcish throats, clearing away the filth that had managed to hem him in with their foul blades and vicious teeth.

It had bought Dwalin enough time to take up a proper weapon, and even with only one good arm, it had made certain that he was there, axe in hand again, to split some skulls and keep foolhardy wee Ori in one piece as well. To keep them both alive long enough in that mad melee for the tides of battle to turn in their favour, finally, when all seemed lost to darkness. Victory, hard fought and hard won, ushered in upon the roar of a great bear, the shrieking of eagles, and proud dwarven blood.

Mannish and elvish blood as well, don't forget, Ori might have corrected him, with that fresh flare of bravery still hot in his dark eyes. The lad had grown on their journey, there was no doubt about that. And for the better, in Dwalin's estimation.

"I'm not fussing, I'm fixing," Ori said, not turning around as he continued to unquestionably fuss with the lush green garland he'd been all but buried under when he'd first knocked on the doors to Dwalin's rooms earlier that evening. Holly branches, woven into a long rope of gleaming green leaves and red berries, were now draped over Dwalin's mantelpiece— how in the world Ori had managed to track down any greenery at all, let alone fresh holly, was astonishing. Beyond the gates of Erebor, the worm's Desolation stretched farther than ever before, with swathes of blackened earth and destruction all the way to Laketown.

"You're blocking me getting more wine." Dwalin raised his empty goblet, but didn't bother standing. They both knew Ori couldn't actually block him from anything, if Dwalin was of a mind to move him. "Which is a damned dangerous place to be. Leave the weeds and sit your arse down. Have a cup."

"If it falls in the fire," Ori said, craning his neck around just enough to give Dwalin a narrow look, while he used both hands to shift the garland a hairsbreadth. "It'll burn you up in your sleep... especially soaked in wine as you are. Go up like a torch."

"You'll watch that cheek," Dwalin growled, admittedly without any heat at all, and set his goblet aside. The edges of the world had gone softer, but he wasn't close to drunk from a few drams of wine.

He'd been just starting into his cups when Ori had knocked on his door; it wasn't the first night one of their remaining Company had appeared on his threshold, without any dire emergency driving them to seek him out. At first, it had been Balin sitting by his bedside, when no amount of stubbornness had been enough to force his body to get up, to get doing, until he'd given his broken parts half a chance to start their healing. Then his brother had kept coming back, with old stories to share and drink to dull the sting of them, even after Dwalin was on his feet again (wobbly at first, until he'd set his teeth and refused to bend to the pain).

Nori would drop in unannounced from time to time, usually with a snippet or two of information useful to their new security measures, or the reconstruction in general. And if the sneaky sod lingered on occasion, long enough for a smoke, it wasn't that unusual. Oin, of course, would come by to play sawbone, asking his stupid questions and slathering on his pungent salves, while Gloin had visited more than once to yammer on about costs of their new guard force (Dwalin couldn't have cared less, especially not with their mountain still filled near to bursting with gold, even after the elves and men had taken their shares), and about his comely wife and young lad, soon to arrive in the caravans from Ered Luin.

Bofur, Bifur in tow, had dropped by with dice and cards, while Bombur had brought him food several times— apparently, Erebor was foul with spies already, since Bombur seemed to invariably make a delivery on those days Dwalin forgot to stuff his own gob for one reason or other. Even Dori had been by, once, when Dwalin had still been pissing blood and shivering like a reed every time he tried to drag his useless body out of bed.

There was a knitted blanket still tossed over his quilts, made of thick, dark green wool— a token of thanks for keeping Ori's head attached to his neck, and warm enough that Dwalin hadn't just shoved it into a closet until he could give it away.

He'd forgotten, in the long years nearer the sea, how bitterly cold winters could be this far east. The heat of the mountain around him was a comfort, but after a day leading a patrol around some of the outer walls, Dwalin knew he'd be grateful for the blanket later that night.

And grateful for the fire, as well, if Ori managed not to burn him to death.

"It's fine just there," Dwalin said, leaning his head into one hand, his elbow propped up on the arm of his chair. The garland seemed to make Ori happy, which was something, even if Dwalin could have merrily consigned the entire thing to the flames. It reminded him of elves, though he'd bitten his tongue rather than say as much to Ori.

Ori hummed thoughtfully, running his fingers along to ruffle the spiny looking leaves, then stepped back.

"All right," he said, seemingly satisfied, and turned to favour Dwalin with a crooked, oddly shy looking smile. "Looks nice, doesn't it? Right festive in here now."

Ori had been born and raised in the West, where trade with men and hobbits had bled some foreign traditions into the Blue Mountains, especially among the younger folk. Dwarves had no feasting or parties for midwinter, not ordinarily, but this year... well, this year it had been decided that some cheer would not go amiss ringing through their cavernous halls, home yet achingly empty still. Yule was a Shire celebration, though many peoples of men had something similar; it was common enough that the dwarves of Dain's lot had known the tradition, and leapt upon the chance for wine, food, and song to chase the ghosts away, if only for a time.

It would get better, Dwalin thought, once the caravans from the West arrived, packed with kith and kin. Once Erebor was full of Durin's folk again, then some wounds might be quicker healing.

"Sit and have a cup," he said again, quieter than the gruff bark of before, and Ori's smile faltered. He did as he was bid, though, taking up a fresh goblet and Dwalin's as well, ladling a healthy portion into each. The wine was steaming hot, but not scalding, and heady with spices. The pot had been waiting for him, hung beside his banked hearth, when Dwalin had shuffled into his rooms at the end of a long, cold day. Courtesy of Bombur or Balin, he reckoned, and as the warmth of it had seeped into his bones, he nearly forgot to bristle at the mothering.

Dwalin signed a quick thanks as Ori set his cup back on the small table that perched between his chairs; his voice was too rough from memories to trust, and he had no wish to send Ori fretting at him as well. He was just a foolish old warrior who had lived too long, and outlived too many. He was tired.

Hrokir would have busted his nose for thinking like that, but he hadn't been the one to leave her behind to decades of silent dreams and empty arms.

Mostly silent dreams, he amended, which was part of his troubles at the moment: exhaustion was sending him into these black moods. It was hard to dig the claws of past hurts from his flesh when his mind was in such a fog.

Fate was a cruel, hateful wretch— Dwalin had been assured of that many years ago, kneeling in the blood soaked mud outside the east gates of Khazad-dum, but the plague that had invaded his dreams since the battle for Erebor was another fierce reminder. Once the haze of poppy milk and whatever other herbs he'd had shoved down his gullet had faded, Dwalin hadn't enjoyed a single peaceful night's rest.

There were nightmares, of course, but there were always nightmares. In the weeks since the battle, Dwalin had watched Thorin fall a hundred different times, beset by a writhing sea of orcs. Fili and Kili as well, their bodies twisted and broken in the mud, and Balin, his beard stained crimson and his eyes wide and unseeing. He had seen Hrokir die again and again, one killing field blending into another, and even Ori, split nearly in twain, laid open from shoulder to hip. These torturous dreams had fresh fodder with which to torment him, but they weren't surprising.

It was the other dreams, coming just as he'd drifted off, and in the early hours before his waking. Hemming in his nightmares with calm, with warm comfort and the scent of old leather, and some sweet, rich smell he couldn't place. And a song, quiet but clear— not some figment or phantom he could dismiss.

A song, but not Hrokir's deep, rumbling melody. Dwalin had come damned close to death more than once in the years since Azanulbizar, and never had courting Mahal to bring him over to the other side ever allowed her song back into his soul.

This was a different tune, brighter and impossibly warm, like polished copper to Hrokir's sturdy iron. Not finer, not at all, but Dwalin imagined it would have been a beautiful counterpoint.

He didn't speak a word of this new development to anyone, not even Balin. The very last thing Dwalin needed was to give them another reason to keep him from doing his job— unfit for duty, by reason of damned lunacy. A few knocks to the head from orcish fists, and his brains had addled.

One particularly nice thing about Ori acting as his minder for the evening was that natural silences were left largely untouched. Ori had no need, it seemed, to fill the gaps between conversation with anything besides his presence; it was a trait Dwalin appreciated a great deal, usually.

At the moment, Ori was sitting in the other chair before the hearth, with both hands curled around the sides of his cup, staring into the flickering flames. He'd taken a sip or two, enough for the hot wine or the spices in it to put spots of red high on his cheeks, and Dwalin was struck (not for the first time) by the odd beauty of him. Not quite delicate, but no burly brute either; Ori wore his feelings on his face, with those big eyes as deep brown and wet as river rocks, and his easy, guileless smile.

He wasn't smiling now, absently worrying his top lip over the rim of his cup instead, and suddenly Dwalin had suffered enough silence. The quiet, usually a comfort after a day shouting at lazy-arsed sods and moronic would-be guards, was too full of memories.

"Wasn't a bad notion," he said, sounding hoarse, and took a long swig of his own wine. It burned down his throat to settle in his guts, chasing the chill from him, though this cold did not come from any northern winds. When Ori glanced at him, curious, Dwalin pointed to the garland. "This Yuletide nonsense. You'll not yet be used to winters this far West, lad, but she'll get colder before the spring. Cold and bitter as gall."

Another mouthful of wine went down smoother, and Dwalin let out a long exhale as he sank further back into his chair.

"A bit of cheer won't hurt morale." He managed to dredge up a smile, or something like it, the corner of his mouth twitching up. Ori returned the expression, of course, though his was a much more natural look. Pretty, really, and Dwalin was distracted enough to let the wine rule his tongue for a moment. "Give us a tune, would you lad? One of those Shire ditties Bofur's been caterwauling, clear the cobwebs out of my ears."

Ori wasn't as free with a song as his brothers— Dori could and would belt out any tune with a flourish, while Nori was only a bit more subdued— but Dwalin certainly hadn't expected Ori to choke on a mouthful of wine at the very suggestion. Dwalin was on his feet in an instant, clapping Ori on the back with a reasonable amount of force, as Ori stammered and flicked spilled droplets off his fingertips. There were deep reddish stains blooming on the front of his brown woolly jumper, and the sight of it made a muscle in Dwalin's jaw jump, teeth clenching. Too much like blood.

"Easy, lad." Under his palm, Ori's back was drawn tense, hard as rock. Dwalin ignored the sharp bite in his sides, the warning of his wounds, and knelt beside Ori. If he had to lean a bit heavily on the chair arm, he trusted the other dwarf not to mention a thing.

Taking the goblet from Ori's shaking grip before the rest of it ended up all over him, Dwalin set it aside, wrapping one hand around the jut of Ori's shoulder.

"All right there, Ori?" With a frantic nod, Ori tried to wave him off. Dwalin stayed where he was, and not simply because he wasn't entirely confident in his ribs and his knees to stand so soon after lowering him. Ori was easier to read than those notebooks he was forever scrawling in; there was panic writ starkly across his features, and Dwalin wanted to know what gaff he'd made to put it there.

"You want—" Ori stopped, his voice cracking like a bairn's, and swallowed so thickly that Dwalin could hear the wet click of it. "You, you want me to sing? I can't, I mean, I'm, I'm not—"

If Ori hadn't inherited his brothers' skills at keeping a tune, it stood to reason that he might be embarrassed about it. Dwalin had some experience as a younger brother, after all; it had chaffed, on occasion, playing second fiddle to such a clever dwarf as Balin, son of Fundin, though Dwalin had gotten big fast, and tough even faster. Ori couldn't say the same for the former, slight as he was, though Dwalin would argue he was plenty tough, in his way.

And Dwalin would also cheerfully break the faces of any who tried to say otherwise.

It had been something about asking for a song, obviously; if Ori couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, Dwalin wasn't about to push him for it. After all this time, months on the road and shedding blood together, back to back, Dwalin found himself forgetting that Ori hadn't yet seen a hundred years. Not a lad— Ori was a dwarf grown and battle-tested now, though he still plaited his braids with purple strings and wrapped up in knits rather than good armour— but Dwalin had made older and bigger dwarves than he piss in their braies with little more than a hard look.

He needed to remember himself, and the menacing figure he could cut, even here in the quiet and calm of a shared drink and a cosy fire. He'd not meant to put Ori out of sorts.

"Ah, never mind it." Squeezing the shoulder under his palm, not enough to bruise but not gently either, Dwalin bent his neck, trying to catch Ori's darting eyes. "It's all right, lad. No harm in telling me to piss off, you know." Finally, Ori cut a glance his way, sideways and half-lidded, still pinched with discomfort.

"Too much drink," Dwalin said, pitched low with sour humour. "Just an old warrior pickling himself on a dark night, drowning ghosts. Ignore me, eh?"

"No." Dwalin was stripped down to his shirtsleeves, and had been before Ori had appeared at his door. There were no wicked knuckle-dusters to bite at Ori's palm when the lad reached up to the rough hand that still held him by the shoulder, wrapping his fingers 'round Dwalin's wrist.

"No," Ori repeated, shaking his head in short, sharp motions, like a pony flicking a biting fly. "I, no, I'll not... you're not old."

That was enough to startle Dwalin to laughing, a hard bark at first, then petering into a gruff chuckle. Mahal preserve him from the stubborn earnestness of the young.

"If only your words be as true as they be sweet, Ori, my lad," he said, hauling himself to his feet and stifling a pained grunt. Ori had started sucking the tacky remnants of his spilled wine from his nobby, ink-stained knuckles, and Dwalin wasn't drunk enough to stay close for that show. No, he'd not linger close enough to reach out on a night such as this, when the pit in his chest yawned wide and aching with the absence of friends and lovers lost.

"You're not," Ori insisted. "Only, you're... oh, bugger."

If the curse, mild as it was compared to what Dwalin was accustomed, wasn't surprising enough, there was an accompanying fumbling that drew his attention back. Ori was scrambling for his cup again, nearly upsetting the entire table; he didn't seem bothered by his clumsy display. Instead, he was busy was going cross-eyed, downing a huge, desperate mouthful even as Dwalin reached to catch his own wobbling goblet before it tumbled.

"Ori—" Dwalin began, more concerned than annoyed, only to be ignobly hushed by a waving hand.

"Wait," Ori gasped, licking away the trickles of wine clinging to his lips with a tongue stained deep, ripe purple. He inhaled, puffing up like the bellows of a forge, and favoured Dwalin with an odd, unreadable stare.

It was the first time in memory that Dwalin had looked at the other dwarf, and not been able to guess at a single thought running through his clever, curious mind.

"Can you not—" Ori paused, clearing his throat, and took another breath. "Can you not look at me, please?"

Dwalin blinked, ignoring a stupid twist of hurt at the peculiar request. "Ori."

"Please. Please, Dwalin. Not for long, just... for a moment." Rolling his shoulders, Dwalin gave in under the strength of that imploring expression, soft and doleful.

"Aye, fine," he said, snatching up his wine and turning to face the fire instead, bracing one arm against the mantelpiece. The holly was an itchy annoyance against his skin, and it reeked of green.

There was nothing but silence behind him, not even a murmured thanks, and Dwalin spat into the flames. They hissed, coals blazing red with flares of gold and veins of cooling black at the edges— like the worm's chest had burned, bulging with wrath, before that smart-mouthed Bowman had brought him down.

The fire would need a log, once Ori finished whatever foolishness had Dwalin shunned in his own rooms.

When the first notes started, thin and warbling with nerves, Dwalin was struck frozen with confusion. His spine snapped straight, and as Ori mustered up his courage, Dwalin felt the sound of that warm, bright voice seeping up into his muscles, through blood and bone, to wrap tight 'round his very soul.

His cup clattered against the stone hearth, the pewter dinging and the wine splashing in a deep, morbidly crimson spray. The fire hissed again, more desperately this time, as a section of coals gutted out under the deluge.

It wasn't a song Dwalin knew— some Shire folksong, perhaps, as he'd asked for— but the words hardly mattered. Nor the tune, either. That voice, that polished copper voice, was the same that had haunted his dreams for weeks, and before that...

Before that, it was the same thready voice that had woken him for years, faint and forgotten before the morning mist burned from the valleys below Ered Luin. Before that, it had been the softest whisper, tickling in the back of his mind even while Hrokir slept beside him.

It was a voice he knew, down to his marrow, even as Ori trailed off into heavy, tense silence.

"Lad." The world hadn't spun with such sickly force since Dwalin had been stuffed into a barrel and rolled out of the Elvenking's cellar. The floor lurched under him, and Dwalin lost his feet as surely as he was losing his mind. The stone was unforgiving under the crack of his knees, shooting lightning up to his hips as he landed hard, and his ribs were shrieking bloody murder.

He might have tipped face first into the fire if not for those arms, thin but wiry strong, wrapping tight around his neck and hauling him backward. Everything was agony, and Oin would have his balls if he split his guts again now that the skin was finally pink and knitting under the stitches, but none of that mattered. Dwalin fell back, legs splaying out awkwardly as the wind was knocked clear out of his lungs, and Ori stumbled into a sprawl atop him, all flailing limbs and huffing breaths.

"Ribs," Dwalin hissed between gritted teeth, and thankfully Ori went immediately and completely still. His elbow was a boney spike imbedded in Dwalin's shoulder, but it wasn't the sore one, so Dwalin left him be.

Luckily enough, most of Ori's weight had slid down onto the floor beside their awkward tangle; only one arm was slung over Dwalin's chest, that sharp elbow bracing him up. The hand attached to that arm was cupped under Dwalin's head, having saved his skull from what might have been a nasty crack against the stone.

"I'm sorry," Ori whispered, his face poised over Dwalin's, though his eyes were averted. The former spots of healthy red on his cheeks had spread into a full, deep pink and blotchy flush, from the line of his fair hair down to the collar of his jumper. "I'm so, so sorry, Dwalin, please, I am—"

"Hush." His hand, Dwalin found, could easily cover the whole of Ori's mouth and span most of his jaw. Catching his own breath with some effort, Dwalin held them both unmoving, feeling the moist puffs of Ori's breathing gusting from his long nose, over Dwalin's fingers.

Ori could have shrugged him off, but instead stayed where he was, with half his face pressed under Dwalin's rough palm and his eyes darting from Dwalin's face and away again.

"All right," Dwalin said, once his heart didn't feel as though it was making all efforts to hammer free of his chest. Above and beside him, he felt Ori tense like a bowstring. "Ori, you... tell me truly, lad. This isn't some trick, or ill-thought prank. Tell me."

Dwalin knew he'd never used such a tone with Ori before, all hard edges and deadly fury simmering barely under the surface, but this—

Such a thing as this wasn't possible.

"It's not," Ori gasped, the moment Dwalin retracted his hand. There were tears in his eyes, gleaming wet but not falling to his flushed cheeks. "It's not a trick, please. Dwalin, you can't— you don't think I'd do that, do you? I'd never, not ever—"

"I've no idea what to think," Dwalin rumbled low, setting his jaw, only to have an answering ire swell up over Ori's face, entirely unexpected.

"No," Ori said, and suddenly Dwalin was being prodded in the chest by a fingertip, and glared down at through hot, reddened eyes. "No, you do know. You heard it, felt it, same as me. Every time you take to song with the others, or hum along with some tune while you're tending your weapons— the same thing I feel then, every time, hurting down deep in here." The same hand that had been poking Dwalin now thudded against Ori's chest, pressing against his heart. "Hurting like nothing else, ever, and the best thing in the world. I know you felt it."

Such as thing as this wasn't possible. It wasn't.

Dwalin turned his head to the side, blinking hot and gritty, only to have Ori's hand find his cheek, fingers carding into the coarse hair of his beard.

"I know you felt it," Ori said, quiet as a mouse, and Dwalin felt his own tears spill down to the floor, dripping over the bridge of his nose. It did hurt like fire— like nothing else, Ori had said. Dwalin had suffered every manner of wound over the years, broken countless bones and nearly lost his guts over his boots more than once, but there was truth in those damnably soppy words.

"Dwalin?"

"Why'd you never say," he rasped, sniffing wetly and not daring to turn his head. He had lived too long and through too much death to be humiliated by tears, but he had no notion of what he'd do if he clapped eyes on Ori just then. "You said you'd known... why never tell me? Why now?"

"I was scared." The words were plain, still whisper soft, and Ori's fingers in his beard were drawing gooseflesh over his skin. "Still scared, mind. You... you already had a Heartsong, and we don't get two, not like this. Not after. So I— I thought maybe I'd imagined it. Brave Mister Dwalin, with his great booming voice, rich as treacle; that'd send anyone's heart thumping." Hearing it now, that Ori held him in that sort of regard, certainly made Dwalin's poor old heart give a foolish lurch.

"And me," Ori continued, blunt nails scratching gently. "Well, I'm no prize, am I? Just a runt and all."

It was said so matter-of-fact, so simple, that Dwalin's temper flared hotter than the hearth currently trying to cook his feet.

His head snapped around, and he glared up at Ori through the fading blur of his tears, reaching up to take hold of the hand still pressed to his cheek.

"You're no prize," he said, watching for the flinch that followed his words, and dragged his hand up to grip Ori's slim forearm. "A blessing's what you are, and it's so far beyond my ken what I did to deserve such fine fortune as this. Ori, lad, have you any notion, any at all, how my heart beats for you?"

It took some effort, and no small amount of pain, but Dwalin managed to drag himself up to sitting in one relatively smooth go, and a shocked-silent Ori with him. A shuffle backward put his spine against the seat of his chair, something sturdy to lean on, while Ori folded his legs, sitting beside Dwalin's hip.

"And what of me," Dwalin said, before Ori could order the thoughts obviously caught in the clamour of his brain. "A broken old warrior, foul-mouthed and ill-tempered; cranky as an old tomcat and half as pretty. More scar than meat by now."

Ori's brows drew together, furrowing a shallow line between them; it was a profoundly annoyed sort of look, and with any luck at all, it was also a look Dwalin hoped to see a great deal in the years to come. One of a hundred thousand little expressions he would learn, from fury to unspeakable bliss and all points between, if Ori allowed it.

"You're lovely," Ori said, frowning deeper still when Dwalin rumbled out a laugh. "You are. You're brave, and tougher than any other I've met. And you're kind, even when you don't seem it. You were always kind to me."

When Ori lifted his hand, seeking Dwalin's beard again, all the air in the room seemed to go still.

"You're handsome," Ori said, reaching higher, finding the ruined, ragged shell of Dwalin's ear. His touch was almost too gentle, tickling around the cuff. "Very handsome, even the scarred bits. And... and you're big."

Well, wasn't that something.

It would have taken a better dwarf than Dwalin, son of Fundin, to ignore the shy but knowing innuendo laced 'round that admission. Still, he had to ask, had to be absolutely certain.

"Do you want me, Ori?" Twisting his neck, Dwalin found Ori's wrist and the pulse thrumming within it, nuzzling the soft skin against his lips as he continued. "I need you to be certain, lad. Dead certain, and I'll wait, Mahal knows I'll wait an Age for you to decide, if you need it. Or tell me no, and I'll say no more about it, I swear. But don't give me another song, just to lose you.

"All or nothing," he said, daring to press a kiss to Ori's skin, bared by the crumple of his loose jumper sleeve, just above the crook of his elbow. "Is how it has to be. I wait at your pleasure, 'til the mountain itself cracks and crumbles to dust."

Of all the answers Dwalin had hoped for, and the few he'd dreaded, a pair of spindly arms wrapping tightly around his neck was certainly in the list of the former.

"Of course I want you," Ori murmured almost directly into Dwalin's ear. Dwalin's arms came up, laying flat over Ori's back, one hand taking a great handful of thick, fair hair. "I've wanted you since before I knew you. Been burning up with it ever since I saw you with my own eyes."

"Spectacles is what you need, wee scholar," Dwalin said, but he couldn't stop smiling like a fool, hiding the daft expression in the fleecy knit of Ori's collar. He was being kissed now, light little pecks over the bald pate of his skull, while Ori's fingers combed through what bushy hair he'd managed to keep.

"You're mine," Ori said, the words ghosting cool over the damp path his lips had left behind, even as they lit a roaring fire in Dwalin's blood. "Mine, made for me on Mahal's own forge."

"Aye." There was still an ache, a gaping hole Hrokir had left within him, and he would carry it for all of his days, but that dark pit seemed to grow incrementally sweeter amongst the bitterness now that Ori was taking root beside it.

Oh, how she would have laughed, and held Ori so close between them that not a sliver of light would pass through. She would have loved this young, bookish, brave wee dwarf, fierce as dragon's fire and the orange blaze of her beautiful hair. As fierce as she'd loved Dwalin, with her last bloody breath.

"Aye," Dwalin said again, ignoring the dull pain in his ribs in favour of drawing Ori closer. "By Mahal's own hand for you, khajimel."

* * *

_AN: Khajimel: gift of all gifts. Khuzdul taken from the Neo-Khuzdul dictionary, which you can Google._

_As the inspiration and time come to me, I'd like to write up a few more of these, or even expand on this one. Plus, if you missed it, there's another direct Bagginshield-y sequel to Necklace of Songs, called "In Shapes That Renew" that will go past the Battle of Five Armies as well._


End file.
